44 and Feelin' Fine

44. I guess I'm getting old.  It's my aching back that reminds me of that.  It hurts for no reason! Yeah, I literally have no idea why it hurts- I did nothing that I know of, there was no pop, no painful event, no new or strenuous activity. Just started gradually hurting, then would feel better, then would feel worse.  A painful mobility roller coaster of sorts.  GRRR! It's aging! I'm aging! (deep breathing. . . in . . .  and . . .  out . . .). 

ah.. thanks for letting me get that off my back ;)

I really didn't mean to start my birthday blogpost with a complaint session.  Let's dive into a happier space! I am so loved and I'm grateful to get to celebrate my birthday with my loved ones!  They kept asking me what I wanted to do the entire week previous.  I really couldn't think of anything.  I was just coming off of celebrating Christmas with Lily being home just barely.  

Well, when I awoke on my birthday it was clear to me what I wanted to do.  I was still in bed with Steve, just taking a lazy morning, then Amara and Lily came in and wished me a happy birthday. I told them my birthday plans of eating and thrifting, then grabbing snacks at the store and coming home for a movie together.  We watched the story of Alma Richards "Raise the Bar." Everyone was game, and the day went off without a hitch.  So much fun!  Great memories.  My favorites!

When I finally got up and walked out into the living room, it was decorated for my birthday amongst all the Christmas.  And Amara threw confetti on me.  :) I know one day I won't get a birthday confetti shower but I sure LOVE that she does that to me each year.

God also confetti'd the world... I woke up to some snow dusting the ground.  We haven't had much snow all winter.  I felt so special.  I love snow and I love God sending me that little treat.

At night, my loving family sang to me. I got an Italian Cream Bar Cake with Cream Cheese frosting from Walmart.

We ate at Plaza Mexicana in Vernal.  Lots of delicious food! When you start eating, you can tell it fills in the cracks.

Veggie enchiladas

Crispy rellenos and ground beef enchilada

soft chile rellenos

Love this place and love these crazy peeps

Thought we'd get another pic in front to include the red Dino and get the whole family in there.

When I woke up I had an idea to go thrifting and creating an upcycled gift to give each other.  Then Lily shared a fun date idea of buying an ugly shirt for each other and wearing them to the store. That idea resonated with me! So it was a plan! We assigned names to everyone and went thrifting at Neighborhood Thrift.  This little activity was fun.

Found a soda I actually like!  This one is so good!

We tried all kinds of fancier sodas.  Uhm.  I didn't like any except the culture POP.  I really hated the prickly pear.  It was so spicy it tasted like someone opened 5 bottles of various spices and dumped them in there.  The olipop tasted so artificial and candy-like instead of fruity.

Look at the gift Steve got me!  A new foot massager!

One Week Later...

My mom took me on a birthday date.  We went to Duchesne and ate Mexican food and went thrifting there!  It was awesome.  The place we went to was a cute cafe called Fely's.  I love places like that.  The food was delicious! 

We stopped by 2 thrift shops.  Amara bought me an insulated water bottle carrier which I love. 

2 mixed tacos and a chicken Gordita.  I love all the sauces.

My mom got Chile rellenos and rice and beans.

It came with fresh tortillas.  Amara gladly ate them.

Amara loves horchata and this place has the real deal.  Very good!

Things I've loved about my previous year:

~Going to the gym classes and getting stronger with my mom and Amara and even Steve sometimes.

~Early morning Monday P-day calls with my missionary daughter

~Learning/practicing chair yoga and mindfulness with Whitney

~Duo Lingo Portuguese... It's not that I love the daily practice, but I do love that I'm going after a hard goal.

~Retiring from our photography business

~Dropping teaching the academic classes (creative writing and geography) to make room for the other classes I really wanted to pursue teaching... Teams for Teens, Social dance, Folk and Line Dance, and Creative teen leadership. I love working with teens in this space.  It's my goal to have them experience love, caring, and seeing their value.

~Getting closer to my weight loss goals.

~Volunteering at Family Search Center

~My callings of Primary Music Leader and then after that Just Serve Assistant Coordinator with Steve.

~Daily Journaling and seeing God's love in this reflective time

~A beautiful garden

~Help from sister missionaries in my yard

~ Our landscaping rocks project finished

~ Our front porch lifted

~ Family reunions

~My first car camping trips to Whiterocks and Heber Valley

~I'm sure lots of other things I can't think of right now, but I truly am blessed.  God is good to us!

January Date: Hideout and More Lyrics

It was my turn to plan our monthly anniversary-date.  Since it fell on Saturday, we got to go to lunch.  I knew I wanted to go out to eat somewhere where we could share a really yummy dessert.  I also didn't want to drive very far, so that limited us. I jumped onto Facebook and looked at the desserts at a few local restaurants and landed on the Hideout Steakhouse because they had some dessert reels that SOLD me.  And it was about as far as I wanted to travel, about 15 min drive...which ended up being great because some of our best conversations are during the car ride.

So, we got there, and it was pretty slow, just a few other people in the restaurant.  We perused the menu and honestly I was so hungry everything looked so good.  Steve knew what he wanted almost right away- the hamburger.  Classic.  Basic.  I wanted the half- cranberry-pecan salad, then I wanted toasted green beans, then I wanted pulled pork sandwich, then I wanted brisket... Pretty soon the waitress was right there and I had to just choose or I'd never eat. So, I went with the brisket dinner since I've never had it there and I never make it at home.  It felt special and sounded delicious.  Actually typing this right now is making my mouth water being reminded of the savory memory.

Channelling Our Inner-Lyricist

I had brought along my kindle scribe and planned for us to write another verse to the song we started a couple months ago. So, we got to work.  Steve is a natural word-smith and we pulled together a second chorus just before our food arrived.  Since the first chorus we wrote 2 months ago was all about razzing Steve, we chose to razz me for the second chorus.  The song we hijacked was Blinding Lights.

The FOOD!

As I said before, Steve got the burger and fries.  That comes with fry sauce might I add!  That's a good sign if a restaurant offers fry sauce without having to ask for mayo to make our own.  Anyway, Steve really enjoyed fry sauce on his burger, and after about halfway through eating it, he said that it's the best burger in the basin.  5 out of 5.  The fries he gave a 2.5 out of 5.  Average, though the fry sauce probably brings that up to a 3.

My meal was 8 oz of brisket with mashed potatoes n gravy and coleslaw. Nineteen bucks.  Better be good.  I went straight for the coleslaw, and found it to be average 3 out of 5.  But then I salted it and it was 3.5. Went into the brisket next and... drop my jaw off my face! That meat was so tender, so flavorful, so mouthwateringly magnificent. 5 out of 5! The bbq sauce was also good.  Thank you to the souls who discovered how to slow smoke the meat and the chefs who skillfully crafted that amazing food.  I write that now but I literally thought those words when I was eating the meat.  Each bite was so good!  And if you're wondering, the potatoes and gravy were 3 out of 5, average.

DESSERT!

I've been nutritious-conscious eating lately, and a good dessert has been calling my name.  There were lots of options, but I let Steve pick and he went with warm peach cobbler and a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream.  It was perfect to share, and we both decided it needed a touch of salt to bring out the flavor.  We were being such food critics, but that was kinda fun to talk about our food experience.  The ice cream was really good.  I think with the salted cobbler, we gave this dessert a 4 out of 5. 

 The company was great, the food was great, our little lyric activity was fun and funny.  Another fantastic date in the books.  PS- I love the foggy January world right now.